Technology allows businesses to leverage high-impact practices, but only if that technology works the way it’s supposed to. Even simple issues with network connectivity problems, outdated technology, and cybersecurity can impact operations. The key to a successful technology deployment is understanding where potential disruptions could occur and taking measures to proactively address them ahead of time.

Utilize Preventive Measures

To make the most of your technology, you must prevent minor issues from developing into bigger problems.

The trick is using proactive strategies to monitor your systems, analyze and follow security guidelines, and replace your older hardware before it fails. Consider what happens when your team can’t use the technology it needs to be productive. You eat all of those costs in one form or another.

Ultimately, downtime costs more than proactive maintenance, so prevent it at all costs.

Recruit Professional Support

There’s never any shame in calling in the professionals.

SMBs are lucky to have internal IT workers, but outsourced IT support is always available for those who don't. For example, you can call Coleman Technologies, and we’ll be happy to assist with any of your technology needs. It’s important that you know all the options available to you, and we can help you make better informed decisions.

It might feel like an unnecessary expense, but you need professionals working with your IT.

Build a Technology Troubleshooting Plan

If something is wrong with your technology, have a plan to find out what it is.

Your troubleshooting plan should consist of how to identify problems and what strategies you’ll use to escalate them to your professional IT support. One easy way to do this is by looking at similar issues you’ve faced in the past and how they were resolved. When you document these things, you can expect better outcomes.

Trust us when we say that having historical evidence of problems and their resolutions can dramatically reduce support time and disruption to important services.

Learn More Today

IT support doesn’t have to be complicated.

Getting the help you need should be as simple as submitting a service ticket or making a phone call. It shouldn’t involve dealing with a problem for weeks, months, or even years. You should be able to get the support you need when you need it.

To get started with proactive, predictive IT support, call Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428.

Technology is the cornerstone of most modern business operations, making supporting this technology more important than ever. That’s one reason we’re so proud to provide IT assistance to our fellow businesses.

As we’ve done so, however, we’ve noted that some assistance is required more often than other forms of support. Let’s go over what some of these usual suspects are, and why it is so helpful to have someone (ideally, us) assisting you in managing them.

First, we need to talk about perhaps the most well-known of them all…

Passwords

Passwords have been the go-to security measure for years, leading to more than anyone can realistically memorize—especially with best practices requiring unique ones for each account. Frequent password resets only add to the challenge, forcing users to either reuse a single, insecure password across multiple accounts or constantly forget their secure ones and rely on support for resets.

We're always happy to help, but some tools make this even easier. Modern password managers let you and your team maintain many strong, secure passwords while only remembering one to access an encrypted vault of credentials.

Subscription Chaos

Business subscriptions are essentially like gym memberships: you sign up with good intentions, forget about half of them, and suddenly realize you’ve been paying for something you haven’t used in six months. Your team can’t get work done if you have too few licenses. You have too many, and you’re throwing money away. With our help, you’ll keep only what you need, ditch the extras, and make sure no subscription negatively affects your budget.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

With so many people working remotely, a bad Internet connection is basically a business-wide crisis. We’ll make sure your network is reliable, fast, and won’t mysteriously die in the middle of a crucial Zoom call. 

Hackers Don’t Take Days Off

Cybercriminals are out there, sharpening their digital tools and waiting for the perfect moment to strike… which usually happens when your team is most distracted. Sure, your employees can help keep things secure, but they’ve got jobs to do. That’s where we come in: making sure your defenses are strong enough to keep hackers out so your team can focus on actually doing their jobs.

Data Loss Is a Disaster

Losing your business data is like losing your phone: you don’t realize how much you rely on it until it’s gone. Whether it’s accidental deletion, hardware failure, or some rogue employee deleting or overwriting critical data, data loss can be a nightmare. We make sure your data is backed up, retrievable, and safe, so you never have to panic when disaster strikes.

Need IT Help? Call the Pros

We do way more than just fix IT problems; we stop them from happening in the first place.

Whether you need a fully managed IT team or just a little extra support, we’ve got you covered. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to have a conversation about how we can help fix your IT issues.

The entire premise of managed IT services is that they can save your business money, but in what specific ways does working with us make your budget more predictable? It’s really quite simple, and it encompasses three primary pillars: an established level of service, proactive maintenance and management, and the reliability and access to expertise that might otherwise put a stopper on your business’ potential.

We’ll be examining these specific ways that working with a managed service provider allows you to factor in clear expectations for IT services month-to-month.

The Service Level Agreement (SLA)

When you work with a good managed service provider like Coleman Technologies, you are generally entering into what is called a service level agreement. This service level agreement consists of the various products, services, and support you can expect from your provider month-to-month. You pay a convenient and easily budgetable amount for services rendered. It doesn’t get much easier than this. With technology being such a volatile and unpredictable factor for many businesses, the steadiness offered by an MSP is a breath of fresh air.

The Power of Proactive

One of the worst things that can happen to any business is a hardware failure. Not only do you have to replace the technology that breaks down, but you have to eat the costs associated with downtime, too. No one likes paying people for time when they aren’t getting anything of value done. While it might seem like hardware failure comes out of the blue, this is far from the truth. In most cases, technology issues like these can be predicted, which is exactly what a managed service provider does with proactive monitoring and maintenance. With the right tools and expertise, you can address potential IT issues before they cause downtime.

Reliable and Affordable Access to Expertise

If you have the good fortune of employing an IT technician in-house, then chances are you are all too familiar with the struggles of finding qualified talent. Instead of gambling on the local talent pool, you can instead get all of the IT expertise you need through a managed service provider and their network of skilled and trusted professionals. It’s a great way to get value out of your investment without adding an extra salary or two to your budget.

Make Your IT Spending More Predictable with Managed Services

Are you sick of not knowing how much capital you need to commit to your technology month-to-month? If so, Coleman Technologies is happy to help you streamline your spending with managed IT services. We’ll work with you to create an agreement that addresses all of your major technology management pain points. To learn more, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

IT support is essential for businesses, but traditional on-site support can be expensive and inefficient.

Thankfully, remote IT support, such as that offered through managed services, is now available. This is a game-changer for small to medium-sized businesses. Let's explore the benefits of remote IT support.

On-Demand Assistance

One of the greatest advantages of remote IT support is immediate assistance. When an IT issue arises, there's no need to wait for a technician to arrive on-site. A remote support team can start troubleshooting right away.

This rapid response significantly reduces downtime, allowing your business operations to continue with minimal disruption, which boosts productivity.

Additionally, remote support gives you access to a diverse team of highly skilled IT professionals who can handle various tech issues. This is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses that can't afford a full-time IT team.

Cost Savings

Remote IT support can lead to substantial cost savings. You can avoid the expense of maintaining a full-time, in-house IT staff and instead pay for services only when needed.

This allows your team to focus on core business activities while the remote IT support team handles the technical side. It's a smart way to allocate resources.

Managed IT services also often include regular reporting and analysis, helping you make informed IT planning and spending decisions, leading to further savings.

Proactive Maintenance

A key benefit of remote IT support is proactive maintenance. Managed IT services can identify and prevent issues before they occur, resulting in less downtime and increased productivity.

Remote IT support also enhances cybersecurity. Timely updates and patches are crucial in today's digital landscape, and a remote IT team ensures your systems are always up-to-date.

Scalability

Remote IT support is highly scalable. As your business grows, your IT needs will evolve. A remote IT team can easily adapt, providing the support you need at every stage.

Support for Remote Work Environments

Remote IT support is ideal for remote work environments. With more companies allowing employees to work from home, it's crucial to have IT support that can assist them no matter where they are.

Remote IT support helps remote workers resolve most technology problems, enabling them to work efficiently from anywhere.

24/7 Monitoring

Another benefit is 24/7 monitoring. Remote IT support teams can continuously monitor your systems, identifying and fixing problems before they become major, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted business operations.

Remote IT support from a managed service provider is a wise choice for businesses of all sizes. So why wait? Start reaping the benefits of remote IT support today. Call us at (604) 513-9428.

What Am I Paying For?

If you utilize a managed service provider (MSP) who handles the maintenance and support of your IT infrastructure, it’s likely that you pay a flat monthly, quarterly, or yearly rate to cover the upkeep of your workstations, servers, and network infrastructure. This model has become increasingly common and it makes a lot of sense; it takes a decent amount of maintenance to keep a business network running smoothly, and when it’s handled proactively there are fewer issues in the long run.

One thing to note; we can’t account for every British Columbia provider, because everyone has their own way of quoting and billing for their IT service, but typically if you get a monthly flat-rate bill per user or per device then your IT company is providing some level of service on a regular basis. That may or may not be all-inclusive support for end users, cover hardware failures, etc. We’re not really here to nitpick the minutiae of an agreement though, what’s important is that you are getting what you pay for, and perhaps more importantly, that your IT is handled in a way that isn’t setting you up for failure down the road.

All that out of the way, when reviewing your regular technology bills, when you see that line item for maintenance and support, you might look back at how often your team had to call for support or put in a service ticket over the past several months. If your IT has been running smoothly the past few months, you probably have that one big question…

It’s the Pareto Principle

A little tangent here; but you know when it’s time to pay that homeowner’s insurance bill, and you think to yourself, “Man, I didn’t have to use this at all this year. I’d probably feel a little better writing this check if the insurance had to pay for a new roof or to recarpet my basement.” You are not alone, and that’s the same feeling you might get with good IT management.

Back on track, the Pareto Principle, more commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule, states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. Basically, it’s an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.

That’s exactly how IT works. If you set everything up right, configure it and document it well, and then carefully monitor it, you won’t be running back and forth to keep fixing it. It’s typically much more cost effective to manage and maintain your network than it is to set it and forget it, and only come back when something goes horribly wrong.

If your IT is running smoothly, and your users are productive, and your security is passing every audit with flying colors, then that ongoing management and maintenance is performing exactly how it is supposed to.

It’s not like insurance, where you continue to pay for the peace of mind that when something happens you are covered. Instead, you are paying to prevent something bad from happening in the first place.

We hope this helped explain how most managed IT bills work. If you have questions, or want to know how we can help keep your organizing running smoothly, don’t hesitate to reach out to (604) 513-9428.

Every business relies on technology to function. Some wouldn’t be able to deliver any value to their customers without it, while others would be severely hindered if they suffered a data breach. For this reason, cybersecurity has to be a priority. In today’s blog, we will discuss five issues that business owners run into that can muddle their cybersecurity efforts.

Not Taking Security Seriously Enough

For organizations that think that cybersecurity is just a line item on a budget, things can get dangerous quick. Since your technology effectively runs every part of your business, security issues can have a negative effect on literally every part of your organization. Cybersecurity initiatives are more than a budgetary concern; they are existential ones. Since a breach can happen at any point in your business, you need to consider the ways you can protect your business continuity. This often requires investment throughout your business, and one number on a budget doesn’t provide the context needed to address the issue sufficiently. 

You Are Being Targeted, Whether You Like It or Not

Many decision-makers see these horror stories of companies dealing with multi-million dollar hacks and their reputational fallout and think to themselves, “not us.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Any success a business has just serves to create a bigger target for opportunists. Face it; we live in a time when individuals and groups seek to exploit any business they perceive as “low-hanging fruit.” If taking action to reduce your organizational risk is part of your mandate, paying attention to cyberthreats has to be at the top of your list.

Lack of Training

Training your employees to navigate potential cyberattacks is essential for every business. Not only do they need to know how your organization handles these issues, they need to know some best practices to help your organization avoid them in the first place. Training them on the best ways to build secure passwords, how to identify phishing attacks, what to do when they encounter one, and why your organizational procedures are in place in the first place puts the truth right out there: cybersecurity is a team effort, and it starts with them functioning responsibly in regards to documented policies and procedures. 

Breakdowns in Communication

Say you have a big contract that you need to fulfill. Do you often want a status report to ensure that everything is on the up and up? 

Of course, you do. 

Good communication is a key component to a well-functioning business. Why then would you not have constant, meaningful conversations with the people you entrust to ensure that your business’ digital assets are secure? Every business owner needs to schedule regular meetings with their security team to get status updates and ensure they have sufficient information to protect their business. Going long stretches of time without reaching out can have dire consequences.

IT Support is a Mess

For a great many businesses, technology is a headache. This is why you have an IT department. The people who work behind the scenes to support the efficiency and overall effectiveness of your business. For some organizations, keeping IT staff is not only a challenge; any turnover or inconsistency can leave holes in your network security. Many organizations choose to partner with an outside vendor to look after their IT to remove these concerns. Even if you have an active IT department working for you, you can always use an extra set of eyes on your business’ cybersecurity. At Coleman Technologies, we offer co-managed services that work with your IT department to ensure that you get the coverage and support you need to avoid costly inefficiencies resulting from dealing with cyberthreats.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you prioritize your organizational cybersecurity, support your training initiatives, and more, give our team of IT experts a call today at (604) 513-9428.

Why Managed IT Services

COVID-19 has managed to close wide swaths of businesses and organizations as people try to stem its spread by avoiding as much contact with others as possible. Any small business owner would understandably be hesitant to make any large shifts in their operations, but it also needs to be understood that the shift to managed services can help relieve many of the challenges that businesses are currently facing—as well as those that may pop up afterwards.

Businesses Can’t Operate if Their Employees Aren’t There

While many businesses truly need to have their employees physically present to function, there are a great many that feasibly could operate on a primarily remote basis, provided they had the right tools. This approach would work well for those who are labelled essential right now, as it could help minimize the number of people present at the workplace and drastically improve social distancing efforts.

By working with a managed service provider, businesses have a resource to help them reach the safest working conditions for their teams. Any personnel who don’t explicitly need to be onsite could be provided the means to remote in, with these solutions managed by the provider for maximum uptime.

Proper Support Services Introduce Additional Risks

That leads us into the next benefit that managed services offer: the support that a managed service provider delivers is primarily using remote monitoring and management tools. This means that if an issue should arise for one of your remote team members, there is a very good chance it can be resolved without either your users or the technician even getting up from their seat.

Managed services will even help you avoid these kinds of issues in the first place with the same remote capabilities. By proactively monitoring for threats and other problems, your provider can spot many of them before they realize, taking the steps to prevent your employees from having any difficulties. As an MSP, Coleman Technologies does this kind of thing every day, and while we can’t catch everything, you can be sure that we will catch the vast majority.

Support Services are Expensive, Especially Now

You may be thinking: so, you’re proposing that I make another investment into managed services when my business is clearly going to experience some tough times?

In some ways, yes, but in the given context, consider it more of insurance instead of an investment.

Let’s say you continue to use the same IT services that you always have, essentially paying per incident to keep your business operational. Doing so gives you no consistency, and therefore is impossible to predict and budget for with any accuracy.

Managed services take a different approach: extensive coverage under an all-encompassing subscription fee. Out of fairness, we should mention that there may be an occasional out-of-scope need, potentially creating the need to adjust these fees slightly. Accepting this relatively rare circumstance, working with an MSP allows a business to accurately budget for their information technology services.

There are many more reasons that a business should strongly consider the services of a managed service provider, especially in these challenging and disconcerting times. If you have any more questions to ask, we are here for you. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Not anymore.
A concept called managed IT services has taken the business world by storm. Experienced technicians work diligently with some of today’s most powerful monitoring software to proactively manage a business’ network and infrastructure, keeping technology working better longer, and reducing downtime to a point where it isn’t the huge problem it traditionally has been.

Coleman Technologies is a proud managed IT services vendor. With our technicians’ expertise, we are able to offer our clients a massive cache of services that include:

• Remote and onsite support
• Around-the-clock monitoring
• Help desk
• Server, workstation, and mobile device support
• Networking support
• Software patch management
• Stronger cyber and network security
• Data backup and recovery
• Professional technology consulting
• Periodic business reviews
• Vendor management
• And more

It is increasingly rare for many small or medium-sized businesses to hire onsite IT staff. If you don’t have the support your technology needs to function properly, you are looking at variable capital expenses that can, and likely will come to pass at exactly the wrong moment.

Coleman Technologies’s IT services provide your business with access to dedicated and knowledgeable IT technicians that are well positioned with some of the most powerful technology management software on the market; and, does it for a predictable monthly rate.

If you would like to get rid of your IT headaches for good, and kick downtime to the curb, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

Running a business today without technology is pretty much impossible. Whether it’s email or messaging for communication or point-of-sale software for stores, every business depends on tech. Where there’s tech, there has to be someone to manage it.

If you own a small business, you might not have the budget for a full IT team. That means your employees might be left to figure things out on their own. Sounds like a money-saver, right? Not really. Most employees aren’t trained to handle IT issues, and if something goes wrong, it could cost more time and money than you expect.

For example, let’s say an employee tries to update their computer with the latest security patches but messes it up. Now their computer isn’t working, and they can’t do their job. You’re paying them for the day, but they’re just waiting around for someone to fix the problem. This wasted time is called downtime, and it’s a huge reason why IT maintenance should be handled by experts.

Even if you have an in-house IT team, they can easily get overwhelmed. If they spend all day dealing with basic tech issues instead of focusing on bigger tasks, it functions like not having an IT department at all.

That’s why many businesses choose to outsource their IT support. Working with a managed service provider like Coleman Technologies means you get professional IT help when you need it, without overloading your staff. Whether you have an IT department or not, outsourcing can save time, money, and headaches.

Want to learn more? Contact our consultants today at (604) 513-9428.

The Word is Proactive

When something bad happens, you might look back to see what you could have done to prevent the issue from happening in the first place. The word to remember here is “proactive.” Being proactive requires risk assessment, which demands that you analyze the greatest possible threat to your continued existence and prepare for it. In the event that your business’ IT is unable to function as intended, your business would stop functioning. All it takes is a single component failing to leave your employees unable to do their jobs. This is why you need to be as proactive as possible--to ensure that you have plans in place for when your systems inevitably fail.

Proactive IT Maintenance

For the past decade, proactive IT maintenance has been making strides in the office environment. When one of the most important parts of running a business--your IT infrastructure--no longer works as intended, you lose out on profits and shell out for repairs more often. Furthermore, downtime can be a major cost that your business suffers from due to technology malfunctions. If you can keep your hardware operating properly, your network safe from threats, and your business productive, you can eliminate potential problems before they have time to escalate into the expensive kind.

Coleman Technologies’s proactive IT services provide your business with monitoring and management software. With our expert technicians behind these tools, you can rest easy knowing that we are monitoring each and every critical component of your technology for any telling inefficiencies. This gives you the opportunity to address them before downtime occurs.

Patch Management

Security troubles such as software vulnerabilities can also lead to problems for your business. If you can’t rely on your software tools to get the job done without issue, then you’re doing yourself a disservice. Furthermore, you will need the latest threat definitions and software patches to keep your solutions secure from threats that could derail productivity. A major part of our proactive maintenance platform is deploying patches as they are released, eliminating the chances of known vulnerabilities affecting operations.

For more information on how your organization can be more proactive with its IT maintenance, give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face the challenge of managing complex IT systems with very limited resources. Enter managed service providers, or MSPs, the guardians of IT that can help your business stay ahead of the game. An MSP's approach to IT support delivery offers many benefits that traditional IT support and even an in-house team might struggle to match.

Let's delve into three compelling reasons why our innovative approach is best for your IT support needs, especially if you want to scale up and streamline operations.

Reason 1: Proactive Management and Problem Prevention

A Shift from Reactive to Proactive

Traditionally, IT support has been reactive. The idea was that if (or, to be honest, when) something broke, you could call support, and they would fix it—hopefully quickly. The trouble was that support rarely knew the issue until they got there and started working on it, inherently extending the time there was an issue.

However, if you could prevent many IT issues from happening in the first place, you'll be in a much better position to be productive. MSPs excel in shifting from this reactive model to a proactive one, which helps accomplish this goal and rapidly speeds up the remediation process for any that materialize.

Continuous Monitoring and Maintenance

We use sophisticated tools to continuously monitor your IT infrastructure, identifying potential issues before they become critical. This means less downtime and more productivity for your business. Maintenance is performed as needed to ensure that your systems are up-to-date and running well without your team needing to devote constant attention to them.

Predictive Insights

With the help of advanced analytics and practiced experience, MSPs can predict trends and identify risks in your IT environment. This foresight allows our team to make strategic decisions that align with your business objectives, keeping your IT aligned with your long-term goals.

Reason 2: Access to Expertise and Latest Technologies

An Expert Team at Your Disposal

When you partner with Coleman Technologies, you gain access to a team of IT experts well-versed in the latest technologies and industry best practices. This expertise is often cost-prohibitive for SMBs to develop and cultivate in-house, but it is included in the managed services package.

Leveraging Cutting-Edge Solutions

MSPs invest in the latest IT support tools and technologies to deliver top-notch services. This means you benefit from our advanced solutions like cloud computing, cybersecurity, and backup and disaster recovery without the hefty upfront investment.

Tailored IT Strategies

No two businesses are alike, and we understand this. We'll work closely with you to develop customized IT strategies that address your unique needs and challenges. Whether enhancing your cybersecurity posture or facilitating a seamless move to the cloud, our professional technicians tailor their approach to help you achieve your objectives.

Reason 3: Cost-Effectiveness and Scalability

Predictable IT Spending

With an MSP, IT support costs become predictable. You typically pay a flat monthly fee that covers a range of services, which means no more unexpected expenses when something goes wrong. This allows for better financial planning and control over your IT budget.

Scalability to Match Business Growth

As your business grows, so do your IT needs. We offer scalable services that can be adjusted as your company evolves. Whether expanding your workforce, adding new locations, or increasing your service offerings, our services can be adapted to support your growth and other business goals.

Focused on Your Core Business

By outsourcing IT support to us, you and your team can focus on what you do best—running your business. This strategic move can free up internal resources, allowing you to invest more time and energy into areas that drive revenue and growth.

Why Managed Services?

Hopefully, this has clarified how my team's innovative approach can benefit your IT support needs. Now, let's dive deeper into why managed services are becoming the preferred choice for the small and medium-sized businesses of British Columbia.

A Partnership for Success

Managed services are not just about outsourcing IT tasks but about forming a partnership. MSPs take the time to understand your business and become an extension of your team, working collaboratively towards your success.

Enhanced Security and Compliance

With cyberthreats on the rise, MSPs strongly emphasize security and compliance. They stay up-to-date with the latest security protocols and regulatory requirements to protect your data and systems.

Focus on Innovation

MSPs are in the technology business, so we always look for ways to improve our services and offer innovative solutions. This drive for innovation means your business benefits from the latest IT advancements without the need to constantly monitor tech trends.

The Best IT Support Services are Tailored to Your Needs

Choosing the best IT support services requires finding a provider that understands your business and needs. Here are some key considerations when selecting an MSP:

Comprehensive Service Offerings

Look for an MSP that provides a wide range of services, from helpdesk support to cybersecurity, cloud services, and beyond. This ensures that all your IT needs can be met under one roof.

Strong Track Record

When considering a potential managed service provider to work with, you'll want to look at their overall longevity and what impression of their services has developed during that time. What do their current and past clients say about their services? A reputable MSP will have a history of delivering quality support and building long-term client relationships.

Alignment with Business Goals

Ensure the MSP is willing to align its services with your business goals. They should be proactive in suggesting improvements and willing to adjust their offerings as your business evolves. We're proud to call this one of our priorities.

Contact Us to Learn More About What We Can Do

Managed service providers offer an innovative, proactive, and cost-effective approach to IT support. By leveraging our expertise, technology, and scalability, you can enhance your IT infrastructure, reduce risks, and focus on growing your business.

If you're considering switching to managed services, remember to choose the provider that aligns with your goals and offers the comprehensive, tailored support that your business deserves. With us by your side, you can confidently navigate the complexities of IT and ensure your technology supports your business' success. Reach out to our team at (604) 513-9428 to learn more today.

Times have changed.

Today, the professional services industry is experiencing somewhat of a makeover. The effort-based expectations of the past are being replaced with outcome-driven expectations, leaving many professionals looking to technologies to help their businesses manage this shift in expectations. Typically, businesses begin their quest for efficiency by automating mundane portions of the business. This creates cost savings and promotes speed. The problem this model presents for professional services firms is that they don’t have many parts of their business that can be automated.

Since the front office and the back office of many professional services firms have some form of disconnect, and much of the work dictates that a person handles the intricacies of that work, automation isn’t really an option. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways for professional services to utilize new technology to promote faster, more accurate, and more efficient operations. One way that professional services companies can improve is by making a digital transformation.

What Is a Digital Transformation?

The digital transformation refers to shift from analogue systems to digital ones. Over the past twenty years many analogue systems have been retired to make way for digital ones. This includes cloud-hosted solutions for time and resource management, productivity and collaboration, and even for the archival of information. The added efficiency a professional services firm can gain from committing to digital systems--especially in the processes listed above--is sure to quicken the pace of your business’ operations. Let’s take a look at the technologies some of the most utilized professional services companies are beginning to use. 

Medical Practices

Medical practices have been improving their IT under mandate for almost a decade. How has the digital improvement gone? A study from 2018 showed that 60 percent of practices that have upgraded their information systems have had a positive experience, while 23.5 percent had (what they’re calling) positive-to-mixed results. Only eight percent reported having a negative experience implementing technology. It took healthcare officials at every level working together to achieve digital transformations that help fuel electronic health records and other technologies used to help curtail cost redundancies and promote the delivery of comprehensive care.

Law Practices

There are a lot of lawyers that like to continue to do things the way they always have. After all, it is one of the oldest professions and there is a standard of decorum that many lawyers adhere to. In many ways the legal profession remains unchanged. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t using technology. The profession as a whole may not benefit from automation as much as other professionals, but it still does benefit through other solutions like document management, mobile management, and other digital systems often utilized with remote workforces. 

Most professional services firms are, like most other businesses, using information systems to improve operations and be the best firm that they can be. If you are working in the professional services market and would like to learn more about how your firm would go about making a digital transformation, call the professional service experts at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

MSP Support

The Managed Service Provider (MSP) provide an experience unlike traditional service providers’ methodology. Let’s take a look at two scenarios:

Tom is emailing his boss in regard to a company project when all of a sudden his software closes. Tom tries to re-open his email, resulting in well, no result. Tom, frustrated at his email software, spam clicks the application which causes his entire computer to freeze. He has to ask his neighbor to contact their IT department for him. Unfortunately, they are out for lunch which results in a massive amount of downtime for not only Tom but for the business itself. 

Jerry, who works for a business on the other side of town, is working on a project when he too is experiencing technical difficulties. Jerry has been working on a new business logo in his graphic design software. While opening his file, he is prompted with a message informing him that his software license is not valid. Jerry wastes no time in creating a ticket with his managed service provider. Within minutes, a technician remotes into Jerry’s computer, reconciling the issue at hand. Jerry is up and working in a timely manner. 

Time is money, so why not save yourself time with managed services? 

Onsite Support Services

Managed service providers leverage remote support simply because of how efficient it is. It doesn’t make sense for a technician to come all the way out to your business to resolve an issue that could have been resolved at their own office. However, when a situation occurs where a technician is actually required to be present, managed service providers have trained staff ready to be dispatched. 

When something goes wrong, IT support needs to be present. It isn’t cost effective to have IT support present when your infrastructure is operating as it should.

Keep Business Moving Forward

Time is a business’ most scarce resource, so why waste any of it? Every moment is valuable, so you can’t afford to sit idle waiting for IT to return back from lunch or wait for them to have a free moment. To ensure you get the most out of every second, Coleman Technologies offers managed services which can greatly benefit your business.

This is far from the end when discussing the benefits of managed services. Return back to our blog page to read part three of this series. If you would like to discuss additional support options offered with managed IT services, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Adobe Flash Player was deprecated back in 2017, but its official end of life date lands at the end of this year. What this means is that the software will gradually show more and more vulnerabilities that will not be mitigated, and therefore, the software will be far more susceptible to attack. Therefore, it is important that you check to make sure that anyplace that Flash Player would be—including your Internet browsers on your computers and mobile devices—to make sure that Flash isn’t still installed there.

Chances are pretty good that you haven’t used Flash Player for some time, simply because other options are more useful. Despite the platform once dominating the space, it will soon be little more than a liability. Unfortunately, this also means that any legacy software that relies on Flash will not function after the year ends and will also need to be removed.

Reach out to our team to find out how you can help keep vulnerabilities out of your IT by removing software when the time comes. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 today.

Defining Managed Services

On a very fundamental level, managed services and tech support are very different due to the way they operate.

Traditional tech support, also referred to as break-fix IT, are those that most people think of. Whenever a piece of technology breaks down or has some other issue, an IT technician is called to fix it. This was the predominant—and really, the only—option to receive any level of IT support for some time, despite the expensive repeat visits and prolonged operational interruptions that came with it. For larger enterprises, hiring full-time IT staff solved this problem. It’s still costly, and often too costly for small businesses, but it does lead to faster turnaround times and ongoing support.

On the other hand, managed services are specifically designed with the small-to-medium-sized business in mind. Instead of waiting around for a company to call with an IT issue, a managed service provider will instead proactively monitor a company’s solutions to ensure nothing goes wrong in the first place. We’ll go a little deeper into how this is particularly beneficial later on, after we review how managed services came to be.

The Development of IT Support Services

Back when computers were first made available to businesses, small regional providers known as system builders that would construct generic computers for companies to use began to pop up. Large companies soon followed suit, and as a result, the high price of personal computers was reduced significantly.

In response to this change, system builders shifted away from the labor-intensive creation of computers to simply reselling those that the larger companies made. This gave them the title of systems reseller and proved to be a lucrative approach… especially without the Internet to facilitate direct-to-consumer computer sales.

Despite this, resellers discovered that they could generate higher profits by adding to what the manufacturers were providing. This led to the development of value-added resellers, or VARs. These VARs would sell the machines to consumers, as well as help install them and add them to existing computer networks. These networks and their needed infrastructure grew in importance as the Internet became a viable tool for businesses to use in the 1990s.

It was then that the VARs became systems integrators, and commonly provided break-fix repair services.

As the 1990s approached the 2000s, IT services were common enough for providers to start to act as advisors to their clients, recommending tools and introducing best practices into the clients’ networks. It was then that the term IT consultant was used.

Finally, with businesses relying on their technology more than ever before, it was no longer sustainable to solve problems after they happened. This helped drive the idea of proactive monitoring, remote maintenance, and online service delivery forward. At this point, the managed service provider was a reality, with the security of proactive support delivered in return for a set monthly fee.

What Can an MSP Do for My Business?

Today, managed services are the right choice for a business that wants to improve its operations while managing their time and budget more effectively. With a single provider taking care of all its IT management and maintenance needs, a business subscribed to these services gets to enjoy clear operational benefits with the confidence that their technology is reliable.

Coleman Technologies is proud to be known as an MSP, delivering top-notch solutions and services to businesses in a sustainable and beneficial way. To learn more about how we can assist you in your operations, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Understanding Why Managed Services Work

It may help to look at managed services a lot like how you’d look at any other outsourced services provider external to your business, fulfills some business needs you to have. However, this service goes a little more in-depth than many you may be more familiar with. An MSP (or managed services provider) will supplement your existing technology management, reducing the responsibilities you have to maintain them (oh, and the costs of doing so as well).



While this might not sound like much at first, it can greatly cut down on the time and resources that any one of your given tasks can require. Let’s assume that your IT technicians spend about 45 minutes each day on maintaining your servers, and again, that’s maintenance. An issue could make this process take much longer.



So, each week your techs are spending three hours and forty-five minutes on mere maintenance. What else could be accomplished during the time dedicated to this maintenance? Now, think about how that time increases every time an issue is discovered, and all the time that is spent resolving these issues after the fact.



It all adds up pretty quickly.

However, adopting managed services can help relieve your in-house staff of these responsibilities. This could allow them to devote more time to improving your business’ technology, or supporting your other internal staff, or any other goal that would benefit your operations more than playing Whack-a-Mole with IT issues ever would. Can you confidently say they have the time to accomplish all this now?

What If You Don’t Have Internal IT Resources on Staff?

If you don’t have internal IT resources, outsourcing your IT needs to a managed services provider has even greater benefits. Take, for example, the reduced financial obligation. While there are many benefits to maintaining a small business, the typically limited size of the budget isn’t one of them. These limitations may mean that you have fewer qualified in-house IT technicians, meaning that some of the IT maintenance and support falls to your other employees -- likely IT novices. This is just too risky to enact, as improperly configured or maintained solutions could (and likely will) contribute to major issues with downtime.



Managed services help to make your solutions more predictable, without the need to manage and maintain them internally. To find out more things that Coleman Technologies can do as an MSP, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

You Don’t Have Enough Bandwidth

When you purchase an Internet package, you get certain speeds. Today, these speeds are faster than ever, but if your business has too much going on, it can wreak havoc with your Internet speeds. There is a situation that happens when too much data is trying to pass through a network connection. This situation is called bottlenecking and it is potentially the reason your speeds are slow. Think about it, if you try to put several gigabytes through a connection that is only rated for a few megabits per second, it’s going to take some time to get all the data through. To check this, audit how many devices are at work. Most of the time you’ll be surprised how much data you are sending and receiving. We can help you with this audit before you make the call to upgrade your Internet package.

Outdated Equipment

Another potential issue is that your networking equipment may simply be old and not be able to use the dual bands that are often necessary to get the most out of your wireless network. If you have enough bandwidth, but your Internet is just slow, chances are upgrading the modem, switches, or routers would be a prudent move and will likely fix any problems you have. 

Misconfigured Equipment and Environmental Factors

Once you’ve made sure that the physical components of your network are working as intended, but your Internet connection isn’t improving, you probably need to reconfigure your software on your devices or move your hardware to avoid interference. Specifically, if your wireless network signal is having problems making it through obstructions, you will want to consider using the 2.4 GHz connection rather than the 5.0 GHz channel. The max speed you’ll see will decrease, but the 2.4 GHz connection makes its way through obstructions better. Unfortunately, however, the 2.4 GHz signal can be a victim of electronic interference more than the 5.0 GHz channel. 

If you need help with your business’ networking, don’t wait and lose more money. Contact the professionals at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

IT Management Matters More Than Ever

From a certain point of view, businesses now find themselves in a unique position to restructure their operations. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an inconvenient case study of sorts that shows a promising outlook on remote productivity.

It has also helped to shine the light on how impactful waste can be in poorly managed IT strategies. Without any engaged oversight, the heightened use of cloud services can lead to a few considerable issues, including

• Unused accounts and services
• Duplicate accounts for services
• Services still earmarked for a former employee
• Misconfigured services

These issues can ultimately account for 30 percent of an organization’s IT investment spend and can be resolved with remarkably little effort. The problem is that someone has to know to catch it—and if these things were set up by somebody who has since left, or worked for a break-fix provider, that person may not be available.

So, it only makes sense that businesses would want to take account of these costs, and shore them in.

Of course, we have to talk about the economy. With the economy in the state that it is in, businesses are going to have to batten down the hatches. In addition to consolidating budgets and managing them better, businesses need to know that they have the solutions necessary to survive going forward.

This will require modern solutions that allow for remote productivity and collaboration to take place. A modern IT provider, like Coleman Technologies, can provide for all these needs.

How Our Services Can Help

As a managed service provider, we work in the background of your organization, remotely keeping an eye on the technology your team is relying on to do their jobs. In doing so, we can spot potential wastes of time and money—including the ones listed above, by the way—and resolve them before you ever find out about it. This way, your workday can carry on without the added stress that technology issues bring.

To learn more about our services, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

What are Managed Services?

Let’s start off with a very basic description of what “managed services” are, as compared to the common impression of “tech support.” Whenever one thinks about “tech support” or “IT,” they’re likely thinking of the break-fix version: some piece of information technology breaks or malfunctions, so IT is called in to fix it. While this proved effective enough, it also led to a lot of repeat visits… oftentimes for things that were relatively simple to fix.

Managed services are a different approach, tailored particularly for small to medium-sized businesses. Instead of waiting for something to go wrong, a company will enlist a managed service provider—or MSP—to proactively monitor their IT to help prevent issues from impacting it. This brings a variety of benefits that we’ll touch upon later. Right now, we wanted to look back and consider how this approach was first devised and deployed.

The History of Computer Support and Services

As computers were first introduced into the business landscape, so-called system builders—small regional businesses that offered “white box”, or generic computers—would offer other businesses their services. Large companies soon joined in, and this resulted in the prices of personal computers plummeting.

To adapt, system builders quickly shifted from constructing labor-intensive computer systems to reselling what the large companies would offer, making the systems reseller a lucrative thing to be. After all, before the Internet helped link the manufacturer to the end user, these manufacturers needed a go-between to get these devices into a customer’s hands. However, as time passed, these resellers realized that they needed to do more. As a result, systems resellers phased into “VARs”, or value-added resellers.

Basically, VARs were computer resellers who would not only sell the machines but would also assist with the installation and networking of these systems. As the Internet became more applicable to business needs and challenges in the early 1990s, this networking (and the additional equipment needed to support it) only became more crucial.

At this point, the VARs became known as the systems integrators, as this more accurately described their function. This point in time was also the high point for break/fix IT repair services.

As the late ‘90s rolled around, IT services were commonplace enough that providers were frequently stepping into advisory roles for their clients, making recommendations and implementing best practices. With this shift, systems integrators adopted the title of IT consultants.

Of course, as the technology used by businesses became more advanced and capable, repairing issues as they arose became less feasible. This, paired with the remote capabilities that the Internet was able to support, made the idea of proactive maintenance and online solution delivery a workable possibility.

Thus, managed services were born, with service providers delivering up-to-date and optimized solutions in exchange for a set monthly rate.

What Do Managed Services Entail?

Nowadays, managed services have risen to become the preferred choice for businesses in the know, thanks to the improvements that these businesses see to their productivity and operations. With a single provider attending to all a business’ IT-related needs, working with a managed service provider has shown to have clear operational benefits.

At Coleman Technologies, our team of professionals is proud to provide the best managed services that businesses could ask for at a reasonable, all-inclusive rate. Interested in learning more about our services? Reach out to our team by calling (604) 513-9428 today.

Think about running a small or medium-sized business. It's like trying to juggle a million things at once. You're super focused on keeping your customers happy, making sure your team is doing well, and, of course, making money. Among all of that, there is something that often gets overlooked: the technology that makes all of your efforts possible.

It's easy to forget about it, but your IT setup is way more than just the computers you see on desks. It's this whole complicated network of stuff. This includes all of the networking equipment, the software you pay for (even subscriptions), other cloud services, and even those smartphones and tablets that employees use for work. For many smaller businesses, keeping all of this running smoothly and, more importantly, securely, is a huge headache.

Why Ignoring IT is a Bad Idea

It might seem like you're saving time or money by not constantly worrying about IT maintenance, but that is definitely short-sighted. If you let your systems get old and don't manage your devices properly, you're basically handing an open invitation to hackers and scammers; groups that are consistently targeting smaller businesses. This puts all your important business data and your customers' information at serious risk. What’s more, if your hardware fails or your software crashes, you could be looking at a total standstill. That means losing a ton of money and productivity for every hour you're down.

On top of that, if your technology is slow, unreliable, or outdated, it's going to be way harder to operate efficiently, keep your customers happy, and compete with other businesses that are using the latest and greatest tools.

The Solution is to Be Proactive!

The good news is that there's a much smarter way to handle IT: be proactive.

Instead of just waiting for things to break and then scrambling to fix them, a proactive approach is all about preventing problems in the first place. This means beefing up your cybersecurity to protect your valuable data, minimizing downtime so your business runs smoothly, and having a controllable and predictable IT budget so you don't get hit with unexpected repair bills.

The best part is that it frees you and your team to concentrate on growing your business, instead of constantly putting out IT fires.

We've Got Your Back

Want to have peace of mind and turn your IT into a real advantage? Coleman Technologies is your local IT expert right here in British Columbia. We specialize in managing all the IT stuff for small and medium-sized businesses. That includes everything from keeping an eye on your network and maintaining it, to providing strong cybersecurity, managing your cloud services, and offering fast and helpful support when you need it. We totally get the challenges that local businesses face, and we provide the professional and reliable support you need.

Stop stressing about IT, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428 for a consultation.